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Re: Varroa Mite Vaporizer?

Are they wearing respirators? I've seen similar setups and the amount of vapors in the air is a little disturbing. I tried it last year and barely saw fumes come out the top of the hive and it that made me cough a little.

Re: Varroa Mite Vaporizer?

Originally Posted by GageFamilyBeekeeping

This is a commercial forum, folks new at the business should listen and learn

Facebook has the "LIKE" button I've heard. I'm glad Beesource doesn't have an "Agree" button. If it did I would have pounded the keyboard so hard on the above quote that I'm sure that even the folks in Boston would have felt the earthquake caused by my pent up release of consternation. All the "experts" who put their worthless two cents on subjects they have no clue about really make me wonder what the liability insurance costs the gentleman who owns this thing.

Two things:

1. OA kills mites very well.
2. Looking at the video I'm not sure the operator or the viewers know the same can be said of humans. I didn't see as many caution warnings as would be wise to post.
One of my biggest remembrances of Apimondia Vancouver in 99 comes from talking with folks from Canada who warned me about its ill effect on beekeepers in the Plains region who had failed to use the proper safety gear and techniques when using OA. The only way I would use it via this method would be by wearing a full body positive pressure suit fed from a compressor hundreds of yards away.

It seems way more prudent to replace dead bees with "good" ones than to replace your lungs with another pair of "good" ones. Please be careful folks.

Re: Varroa Mite Vaporizer?

The study was not done on OA vapors.

quote :"The trickle and spray methods of OA application were
employed in my dissertation research. I chose to exclude the evaporation method due to
inherent hazards to the applicator". p26 (Aliano 2008)

Re: Varroa Mite Vaporizer?

Originally Posted by RAK

The study was not done on OA vapors.

quote :"The trickle and spray methods of OA application were
employed in my dissertation research. I chose to exclude the evaporation method due to
inherent hazards to the applicator". p26 (Aliano 2008)

Re: Varroa Mite Vaporizer?

> nowhere did I see anything about overdosing with OA vapor

I had a particularly hot hive back when I was experimenting with OA vapor. I had heard of high queen losses with formic acid, so I thought I'd see if I could get them to requeen themselves by killing the queen with an OD of OA. It did kill the queen. It also killed a lot of bees. You can definitely overdose bees on OA vapor.

Re: Varroa Mite Vaporizer?

>How much did you overdose with? I tried 6 grams at once and saw no effects on queens, bees, or brood.

It's been a long time so my memory may be a little fuzzy on it now. It seems like I was giving a normal dose of 2 grams for a double deep hive. So I'm sure I used at least 6 grams. I closed the hive up pretty tight and I think it was one deep box.